Robin Red Breast
by Sharkbait
Summary: This isn't the real game, of course. This is just an afternoon's diversion.


TITLE: Robin Red Breast

AUTHOR: Sharkbait

RATING: PG-13 for creepiness, disturbing content, and stranger danger

CHARACTERS: The Joker, wee!Barbara Gordon, Jim Gordon

CONTINUITY: Post-fundraiser, pre-funeral parade

WORD COUNT: 6,993

DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to a whole bunch of people and groups (DC Comics, Warner Bros., Christopher Nolan, Bob Kane, etc.), and I am not any one of those people. Or groups.

* * *

More than one way to skin a cat. But cats he likes, clawed and contrary and carnivorous. It's bats that are his problem. Access is the solution, neat numbers that trail after a little sandwich cookie equal sign, but what comes before?

You have to plug in the right expressions to form that equation, fill in the blanks, and so he's hunting integers, hands in his pockets outside an elementary school.

The bat's a big question mark, but Jim Gordon isn't, and there are plenty of ways to skin a lieutenant, too.

Home sweet home is the obvious choice. A teatime visit to the missus would leave a real impression, especially on the cleaning crew.

But obvious is so...ho-hum. No zing, no pizzazz. And he likes a little pizzazz. More fun is the pig-stick you don't see coming; the tenderest slice of all, sweetest suckling meat.

Little piggies who ride a yellow school bus all the way home.

He's going to huff and puff and blow the LT's straw house down.

This isn't the real game, of course. The real game's happening in a burnt out vacant, with some plucky go-getters in clown masks and a pile of shiny new toys. This is just an afternoon's diversion. A little extra pressure, a little..._push_.

Man's always gotta have one in the hopper, eggs and baskets and all that, and he's not much of a planner, but dear old Dad used to tell him, _be prepared_. Or maybe it was the Boy Scouts.

Either way, he sure had earned that merit badge in carving.

Two o'clock, and the little darlings stream out, waist-high spawning salmon, a stampede in the miniature. Startled flock of bright little birds, scattering chattering.

Rainbow umbrellas pop open like daisies in the pissing drizzle, and he's wearing a sweatshirt under his overcoat, himself, hood pulled up to avoid any incidental screaming and pointing. Children can be so cruel.

It's his third most favorite thing about them.

Inconvenient today - no room on the agenda for playtime. He has to be a good boy and finish his homework first.

And there, in the sea of teeny laughing faces, is the little sweetpea he's been waiting for. Strawberry blond and Hello Kitty tee-shirt, purple rain boots. Oh, those are snappy. Surprising good taste from that rumpled pool of police genetics.

But where is the other pea in the Gordon pod? He looks and looks, but no peek-a-boo brother pops up.

Well. How do you like that.

If he were a schemer like some people he could mention - cops and lawyers and bats - this might present a little predicament, a little wrinkle in the itinerary, as it were.

But he's more of an idea man, see, and ideas, well, they _are_ flexible. They bend and stretch and tumble along. Kind of a wild ride, but really he's happy playing passenger. Sometimes you have to just...let go of the wheel, watch how things unroll.

The human sea parts before him like Moses and the salty apple red, oblivious to what Boogey Man they're bumping past. Tsk tsk, Gotham. Doesn't anybody teach the kiddies about stranger danger anymore?

Little Miss Muffet looks up at him with wide eyes, clutching her pink backpack like a riot shield.

Isn't she the cutest thing. "Well, hello there, little lady," he says. "We haven't met, but I'm a friend of your dad's."

Mistrust and fear flitter-flutter butterfly over that munchkin face. So serious, just like Daddy. All these Gordons, just _begging_ for a hand turning that frown upside down.

And he's an awfully helpful guy. Temptation gnaws, the knife in his pocket warm and inviting. Thirsty, always.

He flashes the badge pinned to his belt instead, freshly acquired from a freshly former officer. Miss Muffet goes from red to yellow alert. "Hello," she echoes warily, lips moving as she memorizes his badge number, and oh, that is just so _precious._ What an adorably suspicious little creature.

He could just eat her right up.

But first things first. He crouches down to her level, grins when she flinches away from his naked scars. "Listen, there was an accident today, and your folks are _very_ busy at work," which is half true. Daddy the policeman and Mommy the nurse are muy ocupado, but perhaps 'accident' isn't quite the word for it (he can still taste gasoline, smell roast pork, piggy-piggy-pies baked in a squad car oven). "They have to stay late, so your dad asked me to come get you. He's done that before, right?"

She nods, baby-fine eyebrows knitted together like a little carbon copy of Lieutenant Daddy. What a shame she isn't in pigtails.

(maybe they'll play dress-up later, and explore some possibilities)

Miss Muffet narrows her eyes, arms crossed skull-and-bones over Hello Kitty's happy white face. "What's the password?"

Looks like one family in Gotham still cares if they come up shy a rug-rat or two at the end of the day. A-plus, Lieutenant.

He thinks over this latest wrinkle, and the kid glowers at him. Such a grown-up woman's expression, it tickles him - dark look on her little face, and her hair has darkened to match it, tarnished copper penny in the rain. It'll probably stay that color when she's older.

Little Red Riding Hood in her shiny purple boots, in a grown man's cardigan the color of cinnamon candies, nosebleeds.

He smiles, the friendliest of wolves, and takes a wild stab (his very favorite kind). "Would it be, ah..." he licks his lips, tasting the consonants, the long flat vowels. "_Batman_?"

It is. Of course it is. He knows even before tiny nervous shoulders droop, tension unfurling; before the relieved smile that's every bit as sweet as he'd imagined.

Slipped from the leash of Appropriate and Procedure, Little Red turns into a whole new critter, something wriggly and excited and _bubbly_. A real switcheroo. "What's your name? I like your hair. I didn't know they let policemen have green hair, but I think it's cool," she's a flood of words, a dike with no Dutch fingers to plug its gushing rush. He lets it break over him like a wave, relishes the shove of pure and unruly. "You're new at this, right? Next time you should just say the password first, it's easier. Don't feel bad, Officer Anna had to learn to do that, too. Is she busy? She came all the other times."

Anna as in Anna Ramirez? What a hilarious choice of babysitters. And here he thought the lieutenant didn't do irony.

"Oh, she's very busy. A lot on her, ah, plate these days," he rises, offers a gloveless hand, and she takes it, baby bunny paw curling like flower petals around his fingers. Soft and small, a mouse cradled in his palm. "And you can call me Officer Joe."

The lieutenant really should have put more thought into his security measures. Shown a little more creativity, been a little less predictable_. _This city is full of bad, mad men - _unimaginable_ freaks. You just can't be too careful.

Lucky it was him here today, and not one of them. There could have been a real tragedy.

Docile as a lamb, he leads Little Red to the car du jour, a non-descript Honda that he has hardly re-imagined at all. A swapped license plate here, some foiled windows there. Just a few homey touches.

"Your chariot, m'lady," he opens the door for her with a flourish, and she giggles, chiming fairy bells, Tinkerbell, cockle shells. Sugar and spice. A little pink ballerina music box.

All the cotton candy charms of a little girl. _Delicious._

Inside the car smells like gunpowder, cardboard yellow piña colada tree dangling from the mirror (courtesy of its former owner, may he rest in several itty bitty pieces). Little Red is too fresh, too inexperienced to recognize the former, and gently spins the latter with one fingertip.

The engine grumbles to life, and she fumbles with her seatbelt, tiny mouse-bone fingers scrabbling and slipping. He helps her fasten it, lets a knuckle drift over her skirt, faded wool plaid that's soft as puppy fur, baby's breath. Smiles at her questioning look. "Safety first, princess."

He pulls into traffic as a responsible officer should, blinkers blinked and blind spots checked. Makes a hard right at the corner, and she sits up straight, peers out the window sharp as kitten claws. "This isn't the way to my house," and there's that wary tone again, dark creeping blue over ballerina pink.

Livid bruise purple. Oh, they're gonna be great pals, he can tell already. "Well, you've been such a good girl, your dad wanted me to take you someplace special."

The lie is easy like breathing, heart beating, eyes blinking. A feature of his autonomic nervous system.

"What about my brother?" still cautious but wavering. She wants to believe, oh yes, oh yes. He sees it in her shiny little kitten eyes. "He's home 'cause he's sick. Are we gonna go get him?"

So that's where Jim Gordon the Junior is. All bowls of chicken soup and green Jell-O, teaspoons of bitter sticky cherry.

What a thoughtful sister to worry about poor sick Jimmy.

He considers her proposal, as he is the considerate type. It's not bad: Hansel and Gretel, the matched set, a trail of gooey red left behind to mark his path. But Gretel here is already in the candy house, and he's not greedy. A bird in the hand, and besides, it's such an old-fashioned cliché.

Everybody goes after the firstborn sons of Egypt.

But this vengeful spirit knows Daddy's little girl will twist the knife just fine. "Oh no," he pats her knee, her skinny leg no bigger around than his forearm. Teensy weensy Thumbelina. He could snap her thigh with a flex of his hands. "This is just for you, kiddo. Your dad said so."

Little Red smiles, secret and pleased, and swings her dangling purple boots, too short to reach the floor. She watches the rain out the window and hums under her breath, some song from a Disney movie older than she is.

He hums along. When he's finished with it, Gotham will be a whole new world, all right.

He takes her to a diner in the Narrows, a grungy dungeon that's always dark, always open, where people chase dragons and sell their children to trolls. A place no one will notice his dining companion, or what big teeth he has (the better to chew you open with, my dear).

It's dirty, it's degenerate, and it serves a few very special specials.

She eyeballs the rusty sign, letters missing, letters spray-painted on. Newspapers that blot out the windows. "My dad asked you to bring me here?"

Always with the suspicion. Kids today! So cynical. You'd think he was an untrustworthy guy.

"Well, I'd _heard_ that little girls like ice cream, but seems I was wrong," he sighs. "Guess I'll just tell your dad you didn't like his surprise."

He pretends to climb back into the car, and tick-tock clockwork, she scrambles around to stop him. "No! No, no, don't, you don't have to," she tugs on his sleeve. "I like ice cream, really, I swear."

So eager, so hungry for Daddy's approval. So easily manipulated. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

He turns his head so she can't see the wolf grin, the laugh in his eyes. "If you're sure. I can always just take you home instead," playing that guilt trip to the bone, never plays any other way at all. "Your dad won't be _that_ disappointed, I mean, not after awhile..."

"I'm sure, I'm sure," she pulls him toward the diner, the little engine that could, and he lets her drag him along, amused. "We can go in. Please, I want ice cream, I do. Please."

She's shaking her head, desperate, on the verge of tears.

Oh, he'd forgotten how much _fun_ little girls are to play with.

"Well, all right," he sighs again, as shameless a ham as he is grandma-eating wolf (a real Mother Goose cocktail, or was that Molotov?). "But you have to do something first to prove how much you want it."

"What do you want me to do?"

Isn't that a loaded question.

Plenty of answers, too, but the kid's getting nervous. Strange men who ask you to do things for them are a staple of the after-school special, and he doesn't want to spoil their funny game just yet.

He waves her closer, cups a hand next to her tiny seashell ear and whispers inside: "_You'll have to eat __**all**_ _your vegetables._"

Little Red blinks up at him, lagging after the joke.

"French fries are a, uh, vegetable, right?" he winks, ruffles her hair. Long uneasy moment, then she forces a smile, shaky, confused.

Hardly flinches at all when he puts a hand on her shoulder to guide her in.

Kids are resilient like that. Neat trick how they just bounce right _back._

Inside, the tabletops are sticky, as are the floor and menus, flyspecked yellow greasy. Their waitress has George Romero dark circles, eyes like collapsed stars, track-marks the dirty uniform doesn't quite cover.

How he enjoys a restaurant with some ambiance.

He orders the tuna melt on rye, and a grilled cheese for his little addendum. "No crusts."

Little Red looks at him with surprised admiration. "Mom says I'm too big for that."

Even the humble sandwich can't escape society's regulating grasp. And they call _him_ crazy. "Well," he offers a crooked pinkie. "I won't tell if you don't."

She hooks him with her own little fairy finger, conspiracy glittering in her eyes like shiny ground glass.

The waitress dumps their food on the table without a word, plates clattering, spinning. Her bullet-hole eyes rake him over, pupils blown. "You want a beer or something?" she's stalling, trying to get a better look at his face.

Bored and curious. A bad combination.

For her.

"No thanks," he pushes the hood back to give her that look she so wanted. And smiles. "I'm the, uh, the designated driver tonight."

She recoils, slack-jawed staring horror, and the question is cradled on his tongue, salty and metal tangy hot. _You want to know?_ They all do, they _always_ do.

Still smiling, he grips the hot sharp little number in his coat pocket, knockoff Cupid just quivering to rethink that quivery cupid's bow. It would only take a second...one messy little satisfying second...

Except he's supposed to be playing nice right now, and nice means ix-nay on the slice and dice. It's a lot of responsibility, this babysitting gig. "But," Prince Charming again, flipped easy as a light switch and practically seamless (though how he does love a good _**seam**_)_._ "The little lady here would like one of your most _extra_ special milkshakes," licks the rippled corners of his mouth. "Please."

The waitress flees.

Little Red is staring, too, drops her eyes when he catches her. Shark-toothed copper carnival lights flicker where he has them tucked away. He smacks his lips. "Something you want to ask, kiddo?"

One word, and he won't need anything but his bare hands, a little imagination. Story Time with Officer Joe, and afterward, he can pick the slivers out of his teeth, glue them to postcards for her father. They'll be cleaning this dive out with a pressure washer.

She looks back up at him, shy, a little guilty. "Do they hurt?"

And you see, there's the second thing he likes about kids: how _unpredictable_ they are. Little balls of chaos running around in footie pajamas. It's such a hoot.

He runs his fingers along ridges of scar tissue, all phantom sticky-slick slide of greasepaint. "What, these old things?" coy like a debutante with a new purse, a pair of sparkly diamond earrings. "No, they don't hurt."

Not anymore. But how shivery exquisite it had been when they did.

"Oh," she's quiet, thoughtful. "Last year, I fell on a diving board at the pool, and they had to take me to the hospital. The doctor put stitches in me, in here," she touches her left side, up high, over her spleen. "Sometimes my scar kind of hurts. I didn't know if yours did, too."

Surgical scars. Not his preference, but still good for a laugh. The clean, meticulous lines - nothing ragged, nothing haphazard. He wonders what shade of pink hers is, hidden under Hello Kitty cotton.

"That must have been scary," he says, so mild, as if he isn't ravenous for the gory details. Did the anesthesia work, or does she remember the scalpel's cool touch, licking up her belly? Did the sutures prickle and bleed?

Did Daddy cry in the waiting room, or did he go to the little boys' room first so Mommy wouldn't see?

She shrugs. "I guess. But Mom knows everybody, and they take really good care of people, so I wasn't super scared. Besides, my mom and dad were there."

So matter of fact. A little girl's absolute faith that Mom and Dad will keep her safe from the monster under her bed.

And yet here they are, he and she and the gleaming monster in his pocket make three. One cozy dinner party.

The waitress returns with a giant milkshake, towering vanilla and whipped cream out of a can. She scurries away again, darting nervous glances, and Little Red reaches for the glossy neon cherry making its great oozing sideways escape.

He grabs her wrist, careful not to grind the fragile bones to flour, not just yet. Not unintentionally. "Ah, ah!" he wags a finger. "Not before you wash those hands, little missy."

You have to teach them young. Good hygiene is important.

"My mom definitely picked you out," she mutters, and he smirks, watches her scuffle down the hall toward the bathroom, skirt swishing and purple boots going clop-clop-clop. She shoots him a stern look over her shoulder. "Don't drink my milkshake while I'm gone."

Feisty little peach. He likes that, he does. Not ripe yet, not ripe enough to pluck, but sometimes one just falls off the tree into your basket, and he isn't a man to limit his options. After all, he's got a particular message he means to send to Papa Bear. The possibilities are...open.

Baby Bear reappears right on cue, porridge pale and anxious. "There was a lady sleeping in there," she says as she crawls back onto her seat. "Her arm was bleeding, and there was stuff coming out of her mouth."

A close encounter of the pharmaceutical kind. Not surprising, as the bathroom here is a real favorite to the friendly neighborhood junkies. Ellis Island plus clogged drains, switchblade graffiti; bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled crackhead masses. A bubbly fondue melting pot of vice, and one very educational experience for nice little girls.

Good thing it hadn't been the other kind of restroom regular, one of the entrepreneurs who held ten dollar business meetings in the stalls.

That would have been _extra_ educational.

"Sweetie pie, there are some awfully strange people in this world," he says, and it's the truest thing he'll ever tell her.

She nods, wide deep-eyed and thin shoulders curled in like butterfly wings. And there's his most favorite thing of all about children, that...vulnerability. Poignant. Naked. They can't pretend they're anything but helpless creatures, living and dying at the whim of a rabid, ravening world. No delusions of control, not like some big rubber bats he can think of.

It's so refreshing.

"Why weren't you busy today?"

Surprise rears its deliciously dangerous head again. "Come again?" he asks, carefully light. Little Red's got his full attention now, his sudden and intense curiosity about what she'll say next.

Because he's _very_ curious. Stimulating conversation is so hard to come by, and a lot depends on this one.

Timelines. Sandwiches. Miss Wasikiewicz and her second grade class, whether there will be thirty-six students tomorrow or thirty-five.

"You said everybody was too busy to come get me because of the accident," Girl Detective Gordon grabs and shakes loose a sea of ketchup onto her plate, lurid off-brand oozing red the same color as her borrowed sweater, Old Spice and cherry pipe smoke. She reaches for a french fry dipstick. "So how come you weren't too busy?"

Smarter than the average bear. He wonders if the other bears have noticed, or if Brother Bear overshadows her in Mama and Papa Bear's attentions. The world is full of those who favor a 'his' over a 'hers'.

Which, you know, is just ridiculous.

When will people learn that everybody's _equally_ worthless?

"Well, uh, I already finished my job over there," and it's not even lying, not really. "Now my job is having ice cream with you."

"But you didn't get any," she snorts, but there's that secret sliver of pleased again. Oh, the novelty of the unshared, the only for you. A real rarity for the come-along-lately, the tag-along and hand-me-down. Second-hand, second place. Second born.

He grins at Little Red, and steals a fry from her plate. "Guess you have to eat enough ice cream for both of us," he pops the french fry between snapping teeth, chewing smile. Everybody knows what isn't yours tastes better. "Unless you want to split it? Lemme see, I bet I got a straw here someplace..."

He pats through all his pockets, and she squeals, laughing, hugs the milkshake to her skinny chest and covers it with her little bird hands, as if they could shield a thing in this world from his grasp. "No!"

"No-o-o?" he stretches syllables like taffy, like his bubblegum scars up, up, up into a Cheshire Cat grin, while Alice giggles and shakes her head. "Well, all right, if you say so. You're the boss lady," sharp nip hello from one of the razors in his breast pocket. He licks the blood from his thumb, and keeps smiling. "Better drink up before I change my mind, though."

She dutifully nurses at her straw, eyes closed, kitten at a bowl of milk. He checks the clock over her head. Not long left now. He wonders if anybody's noticed yet that Little Red didn't make it to Granny's house, if Daddy has already started turning the city upside down or if that surprise is still waiting around the corner.

And what a surprise it's going to be.

But there he goes, getting his carts and horses all mixed up, and here he still has such a charming dinner companion to entertain. He props his cheek against his hand, watches her nibble at greasy fries and congealed cheese. "Say, princess," she looks at him with her bright little kitten eyes, sinks her little kitten fangs into shiny plastic red maraschino. "You like superheroes?"

"Uh huh," she nods, gulps down more milkshake.

"You like...Batman?" he traces water-rings on the chipped Formica tabletop like cigarette burns, turns them into smiley faces.

"He's okay," chewing pensively on her cherry stem, Rodin's Thinker with whipped cream on her chin. "Jimmy likes him a whole bunch. He talks about how cool he is all the time, and draws pictures and stuff. But Dad's supposed to arrest him," she shrugs. "I like X-Men. They have a girl with red hair."

A lady with standards, even if she is only four feet tall. "How about the bad guys? Got any favorites there?"

Her forehead rumples, eyebrows down and huddled together. Heavy lifting for heavy thoughts. "I don't know," she blinks and clumsily swipes her mouth with the back of one little kitten paw, smearing more vanilla and sugar milky chemicals across her face. "I didn't know you could have a favorite bad guy."

"Oh sure," he wipes the streak of whipped cream away with his thumb. "You can have a favorite anything."

She stares at him with big blurry eyes, a strawberry jam bloody red thumbprint on her white, white chin. "I saw this guy on TV one time before Mom changed the channel. He had a purple coat," she sighs, head bobbing until she rests her sticky cheek on the stickier rim of her milkshake glass. "He was really scary, but purple's my favorite."

"What do you know, funny bunny," he tilts his head to match her melting angle, watch her eyelids droop and flutter shut. "Purple's my favorite, too."

She's out cold, and her milkshake isn't even half gone.

See, this is exactly why he makes the effort to shop neighborhood Mom and Pop businesses. Big chains just don't put in the same effort, the same tender loving care.

Or the same amount of sleeping pills, no matter how extra special a milkshake you order.

He leaves a fifty on the table - a real bargain considering the quality pharmaceuticals, or the quantity anyhow - then scoops up Sleeping Beauty from her vanilla spindle.

The waitress and cook are peering out from the kitchen, two sets of pasty faces and wide dark eyes. He shifts his little bundle of sedated joy against his shoulder, skinny legs dangling limp around his waist, and can't keep the soda pop giggles from bubbling up. "Excuse my lady friend, would you? She just can't hold her milkshake," he grins. "What a lightweight!"

They both bolt, and he doesn't wait for the back door in the kitchen to slam shut before he kicks open the front, still cackling.

Out on the street, he could be anybody, devoted daddy carrying a sleeping child. The scars don't catch a second look. In the Narrows, nobody sees, nobody hears, nobody cares.

Ah. There really is no place like home.

He deposits Little Red onto the Honda's backseat, backpack propped under her little noggin, then considers the tableau. Not bad, but it needs something. Her thumb unpeels easily from its tiny fist, tucks into her soft tulip bud mouth with the ease of long habit, and he brushes the hair back from her eyes, twitching violet-vined lids and half-moon lashes.

There. Cute as a button.

Oh, he loves kids. He does, he does, he does. Everything is so much more fun with them. Maybe he should play Pied Piper from now on and swap all his Chuckles and Bozos for the Underoo set - but no, that's not very practical, he guesses. They don't make AKs in kiddy sizes, and sometimes you really need a getaway driver who can reach the pedals, see over the steering wheel.

He and Baby go to the park, or what passes for one in these parts, chain-link patch of weeds and burnt tires next to a sewage treatment plant. The perfect spot to kick back and catch a sunset, observe the local wildlife, listen for AMBER alerts on the radio.

Sometimes a guy just has to stop and smell the roses. You know, savor the little things in life.

Like the little thing curled up in back.

Rock-A-Bye Baby hardly stirs at all when he climbs into the backseat with her. Quiet as a mouse. Still breathing. He checks.

She really is a good girl. Daddy _should_ have taken her for ice cream.

And to think, he could have been disappointed that Brother Bear was off hibernating. But this kind of one-on-one - this _quality _time - well, it's priceless.

She's been such a swell playmate, he'd think about hanging onto her (_honest, she followed me home!_), but pets are a serious commitment, and does he look like a serious guy? Besides, he'd only forget to feed her, and little girls are tough to flush.

Still, it's a shame their afternoon play-date has to end so soon. Only the big finale left, one last slumber party game, and he's got something in mind that's really going to leave 'em in stitches.

Little Red rolls boneless, pliant, onto her back. Her shirt rides up, and it's nothing to push Hello Kitty the rest of the way to her chin. Her little round mouse belly is smooth and white, pure vanilla except for the pink rosebud slice of her scar. It's the color of strawberry ice cream, silky and gently ridged under his fingertip.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

She twitches in her sleep, whimpers softly as he leans over her. Such a doll. "Say, Babs - you don't mind if I call you that, right?" he smiles, reaches into his pocket. "Babs, you like makeovers? Because I do. Oh, I really do. In fact, you could call them a, uh, a particular passion of mine..."

Daddy's going to love this one.

o o o

It's almost five o'clock, and Jim Gordon is at the hospital, waiting in the hall with two cups of vending machine coffee. He watches Barb through the glass pane of the door to Trauma 3, stripping off her bloody isolation gown and gloves. She sees him and smiles, tired, looking like hell. Still beautiful. When she comes out, she leans up to kiss his cheek. "Baby, you're a lifesaver."

He hands her a cup, thinking about how he'll have to toss this suit (no dry-cleaning can get rid of that charred meat smell) and how much he wants to tug Barb's short no-nonsense ponytail loose, just bury his face in her lovely red hair. He's thinking about when he can finally be at home on the couch with a cold beer, no tie, and his kids, and in that instant, it hits him.

"Oh my God," the bottom drops out of his stomach, and he's immediately fumbling for his phone, sloshing coffee all over his shoes. "Shit! Shit."

"What?" Barb's sharp, instantly afraid. She knows this tone. "Jim, what?"

"Babs," he says, and sees the realization in his wife's face. "Jesus, we forgot Babs."

This has never happened before. They're always so careful, but with all the trouble they're still having out of the Narrows and that freak cutting a swath through the city and now this today...he didn't think about it.

And Jimmy isn't even there with her. Christ, poor little Babs. He can't imagine how scared she must be, how confused. Why the hell didn't anyone call him?

Luck has it there's still a receptionist in the office to answer at Sacred Heart, and he can breathe again, he's so relieved. But that's where relief - and luck - end.

Babs isn't there.

Babs was picked up by a man with a hood and a badge.

Babs has been gone for two hours.

The plastic lid pops off his cup when it hits tile, coffee erupting like blood, like the spreading dark outside, but he's already gone and running.

One phone call to start a chain, and every cop who isn't on a slab or in the burn unit hits the streets. They come in from days off, other precincts, from La-Z-Boys and gold watches and a pension. This is police. This is family.

Everybody wants to help.

Gordon eyes the slowly setting sun, wondering if it's still too light out for the Bat-signal. He'll try it anyway. He'll do anything.

A hand on his shoulder stops him. "Go home, Jim," Stephens squeezes firm, holds his stare to make him focus. "Maybe she's already there. Maybe the unis just didn't find her hiding spot."

_Wait for a call_, he doesn't say. From the doer, with a demand, or from them, if they find her or...or need an ID.

God, please, not that.

A uniform drives them, the only safe option. Barb is red-rimmed steely-eyed, and has a blood splotch on the collar of her scrubs; she grips his hand hard, hard as when the epidural wore off and Babs came too fast for another. He holds on just as tight, prays in desperate fevered fragments to something he didn't think he even believed in anymore.

Please. Please, please...anything. Take his life, anything at all from him. Just make her safe.

The kid parks it, and escorts them to their door, shoulder radio squawking. He's polite, unobtrusive, hard-faced and soft-eyed. He could be good police someday, if the job doesn't burn through him first. "Lieutenant, I can stay if you want," he says. "Keep an eye on things out here."

Not the wrong idea, but Gordon's only waiting until it's dark enough for the signal, and the kid might try to stop him leaving. "Somebody could be watching. Don't want to spook them with the squad car," he flicks a look at the uni, assesses him. "It's Grayson, right? We need you out - " but something catches his eye near a dumpster down the street.

A tiny purple rain boot.

He's off like a bullet, mid-word. Thirty years on the kid, he still makes it there first, Barb right on his heels.

Babs is curled into a little ball on the wet pot-holed concrete, wedged between black plastic bags of garbage and old pizza boxes in the dumpster's shadow. There's a purple lollypop in her mouth, and her hair is tied off in pigtails with mismatched shoelaces.

She's asleep.

Alive.

Gordon sinks to his hands and knees right there, all the strength sapped from his body. _Alive_. Barb makes some choked, animal sound and drops next to him, immediately checking her over with shaky hands for injury, pupil response, a pulse. Nearby Grayson sounds like he's underwater, yelling into his radio. "She's here! She's here!"

Alive. She's alive.

After that is all lights, sirens, suits and uniforms both. He can't stop touching her hair, her little fingers and hands, reassuring himself she's real, she's there.

Babs wakes up soon enough, blurry and confused, but otherwise she seems all right. Seems. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she mumbles, slurred. "I didn't finish my ice cream. I liked your surprise, honest."

He talks soft soothing nonsense to her while they take vitals, draw blood samples. She doesn't fuss, still too sedated from whatever she was given. Drugged...fuck.

The paramedic, Marco, pulls him aside.

They want to take her to the hospital. "For tests," Marco says, shaved head and neck tattoo and sad, sad eyes. Which means a rape kit. He knows it. And he knows that they should, he knows they need to do a full exam, collect any - if there's -

His stomach seizes, bile taste in the back of his teeth. He shakes his head, swallows again and again. "You know Barb. She'll...if there's anything, we'll bring her in," he looks at Barb, hugging their precious girl to her chest. He wonders if that shadow will ever leave her face. "She's been through enough. I don't want to put her through more, not if we don't have to."

"Okay," Marco doesn't push, just claps him on the arm. They've known each other ten years, play every summer in the annual police versus fire softball game. "Okay, brother."

Doped up as she is, Babs is in no shape to give a statement yet, or even answer questions. The captain tells him bring her in tomorrow, 8:00 AM on the nose. "We're gonna find this son of a bitch, Jim," he says. "You count on that."

He'll want it in the morning. He'll burn with the need. But all he can think of right now is taking his family inside and locking the door behind them.

Their apartment is deafening quiet after the chaos outside. Gordon slides the deadbolt shut, slips an arm around Barb's shoulders and rests his forehead against hers, eyes shut, cradling his daughter's tiny head with one palm.

"Is Babs okay?"

Jimmy sitting on the couch, wrapped in his Lego blanket. He's pale, hoarse from the strep throat that had kept him home, kept him safe.

He's never looked so terrified.

Barb pats his hand, disentangles from him with a meaningful look. "I'll get her cleaned up."

He understands her real meaning. "Bag and label everything," he murmurs, watches her detour through the kitchen and then head to the bathroom with a box of gallon Ziplock bags, ghosting a hand through Jimmy's hair. Gordon gingerly perches next to his son, knees aching from earlier in the alley; pavement is unforgiving to old joints. "Babs is fine. She gave us a scare, but everything's all right now."

"What happened?" Jimmy asks, small and scared.

The million dollar question. There's a lot of things he could tell him, but Gordon goes with the truth. "I don't know," loosens his tie at long last, pops the top button of his shirt. Breathes deep. Jesus Christ, what a day. "But we're going to find that out."

Jimmy bites his lip, wrings his blanket with little trembling fists. "Was it - " tears in his eyes, the weight of the world on his bird thin shoulders. "Was it 'cause I didn't go with her today?"

The idea is an icicle in his gut. It could have been both his children left like garbage today, both of them gone without a trace. "_No_. No," gathers him into his arms, hugs him close as he begins to sob. "Now you listen to me: none of this is your fault. Okay? There's a bad guy out there, and we're gonna find him, but it's not you. Nothing is because of you."

He sniffles, nods, but Gordon knows better. Like father, like son. Neither of them ever met a burden they didn't try to climb under. So he just holds tight, lays his cheek against soft messy hair that smells like shampoo with a robot on the bottle. A wall clock ticks in the kitchen, and it's the only sound aside from Jimmy's hitching breath, him murmuring over and over it's okay now, shh. Everybody's okay.

Barb's startled cry shatters all of that. "Jim! Jim, you need to come here!"

_Shit._ "Stay put," he orders Jimmy, then he's on his feet, flying down the hall and his knees are screaming at him, but he doesn't feel it, doesn't feel anything but his heart pounding in his ears.

The bathroom door's cracked open. He tries to brace himself for whatever nightmare is waiting for him inside.

(if anybody laid a finger on her, he's going to find them and kill them, he'll yank their heart out, tear off their fucking _balls_)

Little Babs is trembling in her tee-shirt and Disney princess underpants, too frightened to even cry, and his stomach drops, oh God, he's going to be sick, but Barb shakes her head at him. "Look," she says, and pulls up her shirt.

A red smiley face leers at him, scrawled in cheap cracking greasepaint across her soft little tummy. Her scar has been made into one of its winking eyes.

_Little pig, little pig, let me in._

And he knows. He knows right then.

"Call Marco. I'll call the station on our way," he scoops Babs up, careful not to smear anything, while Barb grabs the rest of her already bagged clothes. Her face is white as her knuckles, bleached bone. "All right, sweetheart, let's go get your brother. We're going for a visit with Mom's friends at work."

That animal...that goddamned _monster_, he...

God only knows what he's done to Babs. God only knows what he'll do next.

This can't happen again, not ever. He has to find a way to keep his family safe. He has to.

Whatever the cost.

o o o

Easy enough, leaving Snow White asleep on her bed of Hefty bags and coffee grounds, banana peels, old takeout cartons. Easy to melt away after, too, slip inside a few buildings away and slink up onto the roof to hunker down, wait for the fireworks.

Eventually one of the seven dwarfs would find her, and that's when it would really get fun.

And they don't disappoint.

How he loves a circus. The bright whirly lights, roar of the greasepaint, smell of the crowd. A little short on the floppy shoes and red noses, maybe, but plenty of gorillas on parade.

He whistles a little calliope music, and watches Papa Bear through his binoculars. Oh, the look on his face! You can't put a price on entertainment like that.

Makes him wish he could be there for the grand finale. The big reveal. He'd love to hear Lieutenant Daddy's thoughts on his handiwork. Critique is what makes an artist grow.

And practice, of course. But practice he'll be getting a-plenty, and soon. There's still so much to do! Still so many people left to...illuminate.

Oh, today was fun, though. Nothing like a little good old-fashioned R and R; even a guy like him has to recharge his batteries. Wouldn't do to run out of juice, not yet.

He thinks he's going to miss Little Red. He really is. Maybe he'll drop by and see her again, depending on what Daddy chooses to do. Maybe he'll do it anyway. Maybe he'll introduce himself to the whole Bear clan while he's at it, have a nice family picnic. He could do with a ham sandwich.

Fresh-cut is his favorite.

But maybe he'll just stick with her, his new little buddy. His funny, wiggly little lunch date. They've shared so much now. He's her favorite, she said so, and you know flattery will get you everywhere.

There's a whole lot of games left to try out with her. Tag. Hide and go seek. She seems like she might be a real whiz at all the old playground repertoire.

(Red Rover, Red Rover, let Batman come over)

They could have that sleepover for real. Talk about boys, do each other's hair. Have a pillow fight. All kinds of potential there. He's a fan of potential.

No, they're not done, he thinks. Not by a long shot. He's got a feeling about this one. Bigger fish to fry for now, but Little Red is going to be part of special things, interesting things. Things they won't ever see coming. He knows it.

Why, he'll make sure.

And he was right, you know. The pigtails were _adorable._


End file.
